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Barefooters

That's the frostnip leaving your toes. I'm thinking you must have had that burning feeling in your toes not that long ago.

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Yep, I expect mine to molt in the next couple weeks. 20 mins of misjudgment and you lose 20 layers of skin.
We're into our early days of Spring. Temps are fluctuating. Wednesday was +6C and Thursday was -32C.

Even skeptics about their width came to embrace the G4s/X8s after giving them a try. With free returns, you really have nothing to lose.

I'm pretty barefoot purist in practice, and in December and part of January, I lost a lot of running fitness because I found it hard to go out shod, even in my fairly minimalistic Vapor Gloves and Moc3s, but with the G4s, I really don't mind it too much. I'm pretty sure I'll be running more next winter, albeit less barefoot, now that I've discovered the Sockwa G4s.

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Barefooters

Well it is official... I got frostbite. 7 of 10 toes impacted. All damage is superficial. Now, it is the waiting game to see when the dead skin molts off. Most likely 2-3 weeks. This is the second time in 4 years that I've been stupid and gotten frostbite, each time I ran an extended period on packed snow. My running continues, but I'm not going bare until I see warmer temps. Might have to wait until May at the rate this winter is going.

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Bummer about the frostbite YOW. Any kind of moisture is a b!tch. Today I had almost completely dry conditions, at 30F/-1C, 22F/-5.5C windchill, after yesterday morning's light frosting mostly melted off during the rest of the day. I had only intended on doing 3.1 miles, but after a mile my feet reversed the numb-plunge, got nice and toasty, and it felt so good, running out in the middle of the streets, and my uncallused middle toes seemed up for it, so I extended the run to 7.4 miles.

Still, on the few patches of ice and frozen slush that I couldn't avoid, I definitely felt the numbing start up again immediately. I think I can do compacted snow or ice down to around -5 or maybe -8 for about 5k or less. I didn't do it enough this winter to get a real good feel for my tolerances, but they're definitely limited. And fresh snow is impossible for me. My soles are OK sometimes, but my toes just can't take it.

Anyway, we got some more snow and freezing rain coming our way today, so the Sockwa G4s will be coming back on for a day or two. Still, I'm hoping to make it up to 700 kilometers if we can stay relatively dry after this system passes through. The forecast temps are perfect for getting in qualifying miles: http://www.accuweather.com/en/us/saint-paul-mn/55114/march-weather/23972_pc

Earth’s crammed with heaven,And every common bush afire with God:But only he who sees takes off his shoes.

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Barefooters

First day of spring tomorrow! Well for where I live anyways. Crazy how it's still cold though. Yet another fun winter challenge, thanks again Yow for starting this. Wishing warm weather soon, I love the summer and the heat.

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Barefooters

First day of spring tomorrow! Well for where I live anyways. Crazy how it's still cold though. Yet another fun winter challenge, thanks again Yow for starting this. Wishing warm weather soon, I love the summer and the heat.

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Hey Adam, still lots of time to get in more winter mileage. The way this winter is going the lads in Winnipeg will have qualifying runs until July. The long term forecast for my neck of the woods shows only plus single digits (5°C) for the next 14 days.

@Yvonne -- you added a huge amount of miles. You and Lee are the first to break the 600 km (370+ miles) level. I'm quite impressed by the two of you.

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Hey Adam, still lots of time to get in more winter mileage. The way this winter is going the lads in Winnipeg will have qualifying runs until July. The long term forecast for my neck of the woods shows only plus single digits (5°C) for the next 14 days.

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We probably won't be seeing 50s(F)/10s(C) consistently for another few weeks either.

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Barefooters

I ran after work, for the first time it wasn't in the dark, 55 degrees! Beautiful. It's still cold in the morning here CT, 30 degrees but you can feel the air is warmer. I'm officially out for the challenge, to many days out of the highest temperature bracket. I'm in spring mode now! Again, the winter challenge is always fun.

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I ran after work, for the first time it wasn't in the dark, 55 degrees! Beautiful. It's still cold in the morning here CT, 30 degrees but you can feel the air is warmer. I'm officially out for the challenge, to many days out of the highest temperature bracket. I'm in spring mode now! Again, the winter challenge is always fun.

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We're still in range, but the surfaces are mostly dry now so the challenge isn't really there, which is fine by me. It's so great to run bare again without having to worry about anything. I had a really great long run yesterday afternoon down to the river, then a nice 5k this morning. I told myself I would start working on pace as soon as things dried up, but for the time being I'm enjoying restoring some of the aerobic conditioning I lost over the winter. I think I'd like to run one more cold weather half-marathon before the season is through too. Came close yesterday, at 11.2 miles, but had to stop and stretch and walk a bit at times. I think my recent emphasis on heavy lifts is helping to keep the ITBS ogre at bay, although I swear I saw him lurking under one of the Mississippi bridges as I stretched out my hammies on the handrail.

Earth’s crammed with heaven,And every common bush afire with God:But only he who sees takes off his shoes.

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Barefooters

I'm sort of lucky, I have this 5 mile route that has 4 up hills in the route. I ran this a lot during the winter, it's such a cardio killer, in a good way! I did my first run of the spring trying to stay at a certain pace, which was a 8 minute pace, and surprisingly held it quite comfortably. Proves my theory that running hills will increase, well it's not a theory more of a reality

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I'm sort of lucky, I have this 5 mile route that has 4 up hills in the route. I ran this a lot during the winter, it's such a cardio killer, in a good way! I did my first run of the spring trying to stay at a certain pace, which was a 8 minute pace, and surprisingly held it quite comfortably. Proves my theory that running hills will increase, well it's not a theory more of a reality

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Thanks for the reminder. I was reading excerpts from Owen Anderson's "Running Science" on Amazon the other day, and he confirmed the importance of hills, intervals, and tempo running. As soon as I can run early mornings consistently bare, which means as soon as I have good, dry surfaces with good traction on a daily basis, my plan is to run 3-5 miles every morning, mixing up the paces, and then run one long or longish run on Saturdays. My neighborhood has a lot of hills, so I could plan a route that snakes around and hits most of them for my 'hills' day, instead of just running up and down the steepest hill, which is what I did last year, but which gets boring.

But for another few weeks conditions will be variable as to bareability, so I'll continue seeking out runs in the afternoon whenever it's feasible, and, when the following days' forecast is for cold or snow, like this weekend, I'll try to up the mileage a bit to make sure I'm building overall running fitness, in case I have a few down days limited to my one-mile run-commutes while waiting for conditions to improve again.

After that, the approach will be to keep the longer runs to once per week maximum. I would like to end most of my runs still feeling fresh--a bit tired, but not spent. I think this will lead to more progress in the long run, just as my switch to lifting weights every day but for less time each day seems to be getting better results. To further the analogy, perhaps lifting heavy is like running hills, or doing intervals? Seems like short, 20-to-40-minute blasts of medium to high effort should be our daily bread. I want to do that once in the morning, with running, and once in the afternoon, with lifting, if possible.

Earth’s crammed with heaven,And every common bush afire with God:But only he who sees takes off his shoes.

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Barefooters

Good to mix it up for sure. Looking to get a 10 miler in Saturday morning, it's been months since I ran a 10 miler. I keep a simple formula, a regular run, a hill run (once a week), then a long(ish) run on the weekends. If I'm training for a marathon, things pick up a bit.

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Good to mix it up for sure. Looking to get a 10 miler in Saturday morning, it's been months since I ran a 10 miler. I keep a simple formula, a regular run, a hill run (once a week), then a long(ish) run on the weekends. If I'm training for a marathon, things pick up a bit.

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Yah, that was my three-times-per-week formula, basically 6/6/10, with the six-mile runs often involving intervals or tempo or hills, and the long-run sometimes exceeding 10 miles. I will fall back on this if the everyday running doesn't work out. Along with my twice-daily one-mile run-commutes, it still puts me at around 30mpw average, which is about right for me, although I'd like to make it 35-40 mpw average if the legs can take it. One way or the other, I should have a pretty good idea of my running possibilities by the end of this year.

Earth’s crammed with heaven,And every common bush afire with God:But only he who sees takes off his shoes.

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Chapter Presidents

Checked my cell phone this morning, it said 26F. OK, no problem, one-mile run-commute. Surfaces were almost completely dry except for a few ice patches here and there. But when I got to my office, Accuweather said it was 15F/-7F windchill, which is -9.5C/-21.7C. So a new coldest run. I had to add a new column to my Excel log. Too bad I didn't know what the true temp/windchill was, or I would've added a few miles. It was cold, but bareable. Just as there's a huge difference between dry and moist, as to bareability, there's a pretty big difference between true temp and windchill I guess.

Earth’s crammed with heaven,And every common bush afire with God:But only he who sees takes off his shoes.

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Barefooters

Got a couple of run this week while I was out of town for work this week that were still in the challenge zone. Not so here in winterpeg.The temperature here in town was -32C (with windchill) when I flew back in town this morning. It sounds like we are still 2-3 weeks away from enjoying barefootedness out this way.